Mayor Charlie Luken celebrated the grand opening Wednesday of a new market-rate apartment complex in Over-the-Rhine as an example of the “good things happening in this area.”

        Mayor Luken described the $750,000 project — launched three years ago by private developers but funded in part by a $250,000 low-interest loan from the City of Cincinnati — as a step toward rebuilding a neighborhood torn apart by a wave of riots in April, sparked by the shooting of an unarmed black man who was fleeing from police.

        “We will continue with our voices and our money to work on the comeback of Over-the-Rhine,” the mayor said.

        While city officials may view the development and others like it as progress, some of the neighborhood's poor, mostly black residents see it as part of a trend

        threatening to push them out of the area to make room for more affluent, mostly white residents.

        “They're not building these apartments for us,” said Rummel MacConnell, 53, who has lived in Over-the-Rhine for five years.

        That was Mr. MacConnell's reaction to learning that the average rent at the 14-unit renovated buildings at 1123 and 1125 Walnut Street is $550 per month.

        “I guess that's affordable if you've got money, but if you're struggling to get by, it might as well be $5,000 a month,” said Mr. MacConnell, who was passing by the new development Wednesday morning on his way to work as a hotel housekeeper in downtown Cincinnati.

        He said he realizes that the new apartment complex, which was previously unoccupied, won't directly displace any of the neighborhood's poorer residents.

        But he sees such developments as just the beginning of the gentrification of the area.

        “Once they finish putting up all these new buildings in this area, then where are they going to go?,” he asked. “They're going to keep on moving down Vine Street, down Walnut, until there's no place left for poor folks around here to live.”

        Over the past decade, some of the most run-down parts of the neighborhood — particularly the Main Street entertainment district — have become hot spots for upper-income whites to eat, drink and shop.

        Property values have risen, the demand for market-rate housing is up and about 600 businesses now belong to the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce — remarkable, considering that 10 years ago the illicit drug trade was the biggest business in the neighborhood.

        Mayor Luken addressed concerns about gentrification by saying that in the long run he sees the area as a “mixed-use, mixed-income” neighborhood that will continue to attract public investment and in-migration.

        The new apartment complex has already begun attracting new residents.

        Mike Tanner, the general contractor on the project, said three of the apartments have been completed and are already rented.

        The apartments in the complex — two four-story buildings built in 1874 — are two-bedroom units, with air conditioning, hardwood floors and some of the original architecture.

        The apartments range in size from 750 square feet to 950 square feet. Two retail storefronts are available on the first floor of the buildings.

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